Monday, September 23, 2013

Giant Wasp Nest Housing Millions of Stingers

Wasps are the devil. They don’t make honey, they just ruin people’s days with their awful stingers and bad attitude. Which is why we’re terrified of this photo. That is a 21-foot, 9-inch wasp nest found in an abandoned house in San Sebastian de la Gomera, Spain. It’s so big that neighbors called the cops to investigate, alerted by either the horrible buzzing noise or the sheer malevolent vibrations emanating from it. (Fun “fact”: The buzzing of wasps, when translated to human, is nothing but racial slurs, profanity and threats.) These wasps are believed to be part of an invasive species that migrated from Africa, which means they’re spreading.

The unusually large hive was discovered by local police officers after they had received numerous calls from concerned members of the community regarding large numbers of wasps swarming around an uninhabited house in San Sebastián de La Gomera. After breaking into the abandoned building they were shocked to discover a giant wasp nest in the hallway that experts say is home to millions of aggressive stingers. Measuring no less than 7 meters in size, the gargantuan structure doesn’t seem to have been built by the common type of wasp found in European gardens, but by an invasive species that must have migrated from Africa. The Canary Islands are located less than 100 kilometers from Morocco by water, so that’s a very likely scenario.

Police have been unable to locate the owner of the house, but they’ve sealed off the place for safety reasons, until they determine how to best handle the problem.